/tsg/ - Tech Startup General

[Anonymous No.54433621]

Come one come all, to the only general on /biz/ where the posters aren’t basement dwelling NEETs rooting for the catastrophic end of civilization.

Here we discuss tech startups, entrepreneurship, programming, and how to maximize or acquire Venture Capital funding for your startup.

[Anonymous No.54433665]

>>54433621
>one of the only threads actually discussing potential business instead of retarded shitcoins, homeowners cumming over their zestimates, or demoralization threads
>0 replies
Classic biz, god this board is shit

[Anonymous No.54433684]

Here's my idea
>Customer: Any convention-goer to a convention that has limited edition items for sale
>App: A marketplace for convention goers interested in limited edition product can meet with people who want to pay for limited edition product but not stand in line
>Declare what item at the convention you want, someone else can declare to stand in line for you, you can preselect an amount to tip them
>App makes money by skimming money off the top of the transaction

[Anonymous No.54433694]

Bump, Cisco acquired a startup I helped build for 1billion.

Now I help other founders raise money and take a handsome percentage for doing so

[Anonymous No.54433711]

I'm intending on starting up a service that deals with technology without having any form of experience in the field or knowledge regarding it.
I have an idea and I want to put it into practice, I've gotten feedback saying it could work.
If I manage to get it off the ground, I will put a lot of attention on the fact that my service differs greatly from the ones available, not only just in its very core function which is in itself somewhat unique, but also based on the fact that I have absolutely no fucking idea of what I am doing. It's a selling point not knowing shit, I'd be spending the rest of my life laughing to myself if it worked.

[Anonymous No.54433712]

>>54433694
Very nice anon. A company that I view as competition (with a significantly inferior product) was recently acquired for over 100 million. It’s like free market research knowing what your competition sold for

[Anonymous No.54433736]

>>54433621
I'm the founder of a tier 1/2 VC backed crypto startup valued in the low 8 figures. Funding is tighter right now but there's still a ton of opportunity in crypto. Everyone that made a couple million last run calls themselves a VC now. I don't have a ton of advice but I'll answer any questions.

[Anonymous No.54433738]

>>54433665
Because startups aren’t accessible for investment by 99.99999% of people who post on this board. By the time they’re in the news they’re clearly past the seed capital phase, but not yet in the public offer phase, and since /biz/ fags really only care about things that can theoretically make money, not news about advances in tech, nobody gives a shit.

[Anonymous No.54433791]

>>54433738
I’ll also add that if you have an idea for a startup that’s actually smart and could actually make you money, why the fuck would discuss it here where someone else can just steal your idea?

[Anonymous No.54433811]

>>54433736
ton of opportunity where? rolling your own shitcoin? crypto related programs? handjobs for chainlink?

[Anonymous No.54433815]

>>54433621
I am a senior engineer that built a company which was bought by a silicon valley giant a couple of years ago.
I got a good package to stay on the team, but I am realising that big corp life is not for me... diversity and just loads of people hired to push papers, make my life more difficult and keep seats warm are just too much for me to deal with. Now I have like 4 managers I have to answer to, it's all fucking retarded. I want to start a new company, but I have no insight into what I should spend my time on or what VCs are interested in these days.
I plan on starting a marketing agency, I can automate most of it, but it's still early stages and I am focused on lead acquisition....

[Anonymous No.54433897]

>>54433694
>>54433736
Gentleman, I bring you Ninja >>54433684
Every single /tg/ convention in the country has exclusive items that people want but don't want to wait for, and that is where you can make your money. It's not even limited to /tg/
I personally have experience in nothing but C#, but I am a fast learner. With both of your powers combined, you can half your risk

What do you say? Where do I send my bank details

[Anonymous No.54433904]

>>54433811
that's your problem not mine. look for smaller blockchains with a lot of VC backing if you're desperate for opportunity

[Anonymous No.54433970]

>>54433621
I've tried discussing my startup on here before and keep getting called a LARPer, but my non-crypto non-software company booked a mil in contracts last year with no VC investment (btw that's not even a lot of money)
>>54433738
>Because startups aren’t accessible for investment by 99.99999% of people who post on this board.
WRONG
Reg CF lets retail investors put up to $100 into startups via SEC Form C filing
You can get in early for once you just don't do your own research
>Wefundr
>StartEngine
>Spaced Ventures for defense and space tech
>>54433791
>why the fuck would discuss it here where someone else can just steal your idea?
The idea is 1%, the other 99% is the execution which requires knowhow a lot of the sweaty NEETs and trannies on here don't have

[Anonymous No.54434007]

>>54433684
>>54433897
What's the total addressable market for this? How much do you think people are willing to pay per transaction? What do you estimate as the monthly revenue from a user? From 1000 users?
What's the estimated customer acquisition cost per customer against that revenue? What do you think you'll gross?
Do you have any links to event apps like Whova or Socio where you can embed this as a feature? Do you have an exit strategy?

[Anonymous No.54434013]

>>54433621
Finally, some good FUCKING thread.

[Anonymous No.54434030]

>>54434007
Those are great questions and I'd be happy to answer them with your money
GenCon is one of the biggest /tg/ events in the US, and this is just one single convention in one weekend
>The convention's 55th running generated an estimated $57.4 million in economic activity for restaurants, hotels and other local businesses in Indianapolis, according to organizers. "For nearly two decades, Gen Con has held its amazing event in Indy

[Anonymous No.54434037]

>>54433738
>>54433970
Sorry not up to $100, a MINIMUM of $100

[Anonymous No.54434071]

>>54433897
Ninja, like the blender brand?

[Anonymous No.54434080]

>>54434030
>Those are great questions and I'd be happy to answer them with your money
Nope, not good enough, you'll be asked to come back when you've proven the concept
>but how am I supposed to know all that business stuff I write software
If you're smart enough to write software you're smart enough to do a few days of research and basic math to estimate your market.
That $57.4M is a "top down" number which is garbage and tells me nothing about the market segment you want to capture. Always have estimates from the bottom up, i.e. "I can make this much revenue from one customer and I'm pretty sure in this event I can capture x customers and bring in $Y revenue"

[Anonymous No.54434086]

What do i do if i have a revolutionary app idea but lack the skills motivation and knowledge to lift it off?

[Anonymous No.54434092]

>>54434071
Whoops, I mean NJA, only pronunced ninja
>>54434080
It's okay anon we have discussed and decided we will not be going with your funding route, thank you for your time and consideration

[Anonymous No.54434110]

>>54434092
>It's okay anon we have discussed and decided we will not be going with your funding route, thank you for your time and consideration
HA look at the arrogance of this tool
You seriously think it's easy to get VC money if you're not connected or jewish? (I repeat myself). If you're even 5% serious about trying to start a company you'll find out it's a buyers market my friend.
>>54434086
You rot like the fool I replied to above

[Anonymous No.54434121]

>>54433970
>just put your money into crowdfunding scams
might as well buy penny stocks at that point

[Anonymous No.54434123]

>>54434110
Thank you for your time but we have decided on a different route

[Anonymous No.54434151]

Thanks for the thread, OP.

I'm running a few companies of which two I'm really struggling to get off the ground.
One is in sublimation printing, and the other is disposable packaging and cutlery.

The real challenge at the moment is deciding whether or not I should be focusing on the B2B market or individuals for the printing business.
I have a website without a webshop since I can't offer any product at a fair price just yet. I'm waiting for my business unit to be ready and ordered the machinery
but it might be a while until everything is set up.
I've been trying to get some graphic designers to make a few templates for the mousepads that I'll be printing but it's proven difficult to get the right image.
Most designers can only give me MLG-style logos at best, and there's no heart in their work whatsoever.
I could try AI but the prompts are hard to figure out.

As for the disposables, there's a lot of competition here and boils down to the same problem I have with the printing business too:

It's ridiculously difficult to get people interested in your product, even if it's cheaper and just as high a quality as the alternative.
E-mails rarely get answered, and if they do, it never goes anywhere. I offer to swing by and show samples but it's just dead on the other end of the line, no matter what I do.
Even the product-managers of small retail stores don't give a shit, while they could be making far higher margins off the commission than on what they have in stock right now.

People have no goddamn ambition and I can't start up my own shop online since I have no stock yet.

It's fucking me up something fierce, /biz/bros.
I got enough to get me through the year but I don't want this to remain a money sink.
I wanna make bank so I can tell myself it's worth it.

Anyone have any experience with webshops?
What can I do to get my name out there? What do people like? What are they willing to pay and for what are they willing to pay more?

[Anonymous No.54434160]

>>54433621
>>54433665
>try to give actual business advice and smart ass get responses like
>>54434121
>>54434123
You're never going to have a discussion about business here because business is serious and the brown foreigners and gender-confused children that post here are incapable of being serious
/biz/ is for crypto scames and where Kadokawa and Good Smile (the owners) can shill plastic products and video games to trannies that made a lucky flip in crypto, I was a fool not to see that now

[Anonymous No.54434174]

>>54434160
bye bye, sorry we couldn't make it work

[Anonymous No.54434179]

How do i get funding as a blue collar guy in his 30's?

[Anonymous No.54434203]

>>54434174
I'm sorry too, you're always gonna be a loser and that's sad

[Anonymous No.54434207]

>>54434203
It's okay bro we're all on /biz/ together. Sorry we couldn't make your idea work

[Anonymous No.54434424]

>>54434151
i'd pick one and focus it, i get the desire to start a side project but until you have something off the ground you're splitting your resources way too heavily.

[Anonymous No.54434774]

>>54434179
You probably don’t, gonna need to do it on your own

[Anonymous No.54434792]

>>54433712
100%

[Anonymous No.54434815]

>>54433791
Lot of scrappy anons looking for intros to VCs. Especially a first time founder that is trying to understand funding, hence why they dangle the idea for validation and situation where someone with access to VCs are in the thread.

[Anonymous No.54434880]

>>54434007
Ahhh, experienced anons here. All about the unit economics

[Anonymous No.54434887]

>>54434080
It’s all about the SAM (serviceable addressable market)

[Anonymous No.54435645]

>>54434424
Yeah, you're right. I'll start with just a webshop but I'll park the printing thing for now until I get those machines installed and ready.
It's gonna get busy as hell without that hanging over my head anyway

[Anonymous No.54436015]

>>54433815
Shouldn't you do it the other way around? You need to prove that you have a viable product, so you need to be able to provide results with your marketing agency. How will you get leads and close sales when you can't prove results yet?

[Anonymous No.54436057]

>>54433970
What is your startup/business? Also, how to get high ticket clients without having previous clients?

[Anonymous No.54436094]

>>54436057
You can't get the high ticket without proof of concept or quality.
Start small. Unless you have a revolutionary software or tech that giants like Google or Microsoft buy up to futureproof for half a billion bucks you're gonna have to grind it out.

[Anonymous No.54436166]

>>54436094
So start small/free, get results form clients as proof of concept/work, put it on my landing page and raise prices. How much proof would there need to be?

[Anonymous No.54436220]

>>54436166
Nah, that'll about do it.

[Anonymous No.54436630]

>>54436015
>How will you get leads and close sales when you can't prove results yet?
LeadGen is the first step of many, no doubt. I plan on having this dialled in first since it is by far the most difficult. The rest is creating ads and copy for different platforms, which can be easily automated since everything has easy to use API interfaces, so I'll likely have one microservice/integration that'll call home to the mothership for attribution and reporting.
It's tedious more than anything else, really.

[Anonymous No.54436665]

When the startup I worked at folded late last year, a guy I worked with there and I started our own venture studio. It's been a struggle the first couple months, but we've got a few contracts coming through now and things are starting to look up. At some point I realized I can't work for other people and not lose my mind at some point, so this seemed like the next best option.

[Anonymous No.54436843]

>>54436057
>What is your startup/business?
Government contracting. Not gay IRS bookkeeping "contracting" but real make military hardware contracting
>Also, how to get high ticket clients without having previous clients?
That's the blessing and curse of working with USG - it's very hard to get in but once you're in the deals start in the six-seven figure range
Overall I would NOT recommend you get into though, it's not very lucrative for small businesses
Leadgen for a more consumer or b2b facing business like >>54436630 describes I think is a better way of maintaining a revenue stream since you can easily get fucked by budget cycle shit in gov't contracting

[Anonymous No.54438407]

Bump

[Anonymous No.54438433]

>>54433694
Can I get your email
>inb4 glow harder

[Anonymous No.54438461]

Does anyone need an analyst? Currently at a startup tech company based in SF as an BI analyst and trying to get in early companies